Isn't it interesting how all the Republican scandals follow a simple theme: Republicans ignoring inconvenient dangers - ie: anything they can't exploit to expand their power.
*Pre-9/11 warnings of terrorist attacks? Can't be true unless Saddam Hussein is involved.
*Warnings that civil war might break out if we invade Iraq? No way - we'll be welcomed as liberators, democracy will break out, the people will invite us to keep troops there permanently as a shield against Iran, and we'll pay for it all with Iraqi oil.
*Weakened levees in New Orleans? Don't worry, they'll hold.
*One of the most powerful House Republicans playing online sexual predator and sexually harrassing underaged boys? Can't be true - it would
lose votes He said he wasn't doing it, so there's no problem.
Ignore the inconvenient danger and go with the wishful thinking - this describes the entire Bush Presidency (more below)
Consider the Iraq "Coalition Provisional Authority" - the agency most undeserving of the acronym CPA due to their slipshod accounting practices. Who would try and prove that political connections are far more important than actual knowledge when it comes to getting the job done by hiring young, inexperienced party faithful to rebuild Iraq except someone substituting wishful thinking for reality? Tons of money disappearing? Can't be true - we're not the UN. And after all the CPA's multi-billion dollar losses, and the massive US deficits, who but the Bush/Rove/Bolton team would be able to go to the UN and seriously try and tell the UN how to avoid mismanaging money? I used to think they were cynically trying to divert attention from their own misdeeds - but now I'm beginning to think they really have permanently confused "spin" for reality.
Regardless, we've got a nice, clear-cut, media-friendly, Joe Sixpax-comprehensible scandal here, the "Ur-Scandal", the one that clarifies everything. The new theme: You know how Hastert ignored that sexual predator because he was afraid he'd lose votes if the truth came out? That's how Bush acts about the Iraqi Civil War - and about W's disasterous impending attack on Iran - and his failure to catch Osama, and...